Dear Ralph,
You make a good point about leeching...
Here’s a mat related DIY horror story and an important caution… ;^)
I recall the case of someone who decided to make a DIY mat from rubber off-cuts. The rubber was smooth on one side and diamond patterned on the other. The experimenter preferred to use it diamond side up.
He left an LP on his turntable for a prolonged period (perhaps using an old LP as a makeshift dust cover). When he finally lifted the LP off and inspected the underside, the rubber diamond pattern had leeched onto the LP itself(!)
This is similar to what happens with natural rubber feet such as those used on many items of equipment, from T/Ts to tape decks.
One example was the old LP12. Placed on a table, eventually the rubber would “bond” itself to the object in contact. After a time it became more difficult to move the T/T because it was effectively “glued” to the table. Once moved, one could see the familiar black rings on the table where rubber feet had left their mark.
With suspended turntables this wasn’t good news. The strong coupling bond between one massive object and another led to the turntable’s performance being affected adversely. The solution to this (and a simultaneous turntable upgrade tweak for Linn, etc) was to place 1” squares of paper under each of the feet. The feet then “glued” themselves to the paper but not the supporting structure. ;^)
It caught on and for many years, there were thousands of T/T owners with bits of paper under their equipment feet. :D
Where mats are concerned, I guess the moral of the story is that we should try to anticipate bad things when experimenting with materials. The mat is easily replaceable but the vinyl may not be… ;^)
